Crisis control teams merge
Two rivals in the crisis management business have joined forces to control a bigger slice of a growth industry fuelled by WA's resources sector.
Dynamiq and EMQ have merged in a scrip-for-scrip deal that Dynamiq founder and chief executive Anthony Moorhouse said would give clients "the best of both worlds".
The combined group has 170 employees and provides services ranging from crisis training and paramedic services to helping travellers or workers caught up in overseas emergencies.
The deal comes two years after Dynamiq swallowed WA health firm Compass.
Sydney-based Dynamiq had annual turnover of about $25 million before the merger. It earns about 60 per cent of that in WA, mostly serving the health and safety needs of Perth-based mining and oil and gas companies operating here or in Africa.
The firm would be best remembered for handling the aftermath of the Sundance Resources plane crash in Cameroon in 2010, which killed the company's entire board. A Dynamiq employee was among the fatalities.
It has assisted media outlets reporting on the Arab Spring uprisings, evacuated vehicle crash victims from Papua New Guinea and air-lifted client employee families from last year's super typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
"The industries that we service are growing both in Australia and, importantly, overseas," Mr Moorhouse said.
"The sectors we support have a really clear understanding of the risks that they face and the consequences of something going wrong."
Founded by Gary Rigby, Melbourne-based EMQ had been one of Dynamiq's biggest competitors in the emergency services space. Mr Moorhouse said he had looked from afar with envy at EMQ's issues management software platform, used by the likes of Inpex, BHP Billiton and John Holland.
Due diligence on the merger had found clients liked Dynamiq's emergency exercises but preferred EMQ's behind-the-scenes project management.
Mr Moorhouse is a former special forces counter-terrorism commander, while Mr Rigby has an oil and gas engineering background.
The Dynamiq boss said while his firm had been mostly ex-military types, EMQ brought more engineers and firefighters into the mix.
EMQ has been folded into Dynamiq Strategy, with Mr Rigby as the consulting arm's joint managing director.
